actor glenn close has family members with mental illnesses, and she helped form this organization to erase the negative valence associated with mental disorders — depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and such. you can reach it at http://www.bringchange2mind.org.

— i have also had family members with problems like these, and i inherited unbalanced brain chemistry. it’s been nearly 40 years since i first sought help for depression. in addition, i was a victim of physical abuse a few years ago and experienced post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. downer, right?

— Medication 2010: it’s a new world, with a much more sophisticated understanding of the brain and how it works. now there are drugs targeted at achieving specific outcomes. you need to see a psychiatrist — hopefully someone under 40-45 — who understands the differences between the most recent medications and the therapeutic dosages. your family doctor or internist just doesn’t know enough to treat mental illness effectively. but this person can refer you to a psychiatrist.

— Talk therapy 2010: Flash — talk therapy actually causes changes in your brain. you may need a good psychologist and a good psychiatrist. they work in tandem. avoid psychologists who, after listening to your problems, just say “i feel your pain.”

— Insurance 2010: my employer’s medical insurance covers physical and mental illness in the same way. i just pay the co-pay that i pay for any specialist. prescriptions are also covered the same. this is a huge change and definitely overdue.

— if you need help, consult your doctor, talk with a friend who knows about treatment options, call in-crisis support 800-273-8255, or call 911. get help now.

— 1 in 6 adults experiences a mental illness in his or her lifetime. sometimes these last a few months or a few years, and sometimes they last a lifetime. there’s no shame in saying that you are being treated for a mental illness, and there’s no shame in seeking help.

Like this:

an interesting study, but look at the interpretation of the results: which outcomes support the theoretical hypotheses? it seems that “merely” helping those with very severe depression is a minor finding! this is a good example of too much reliance on statistical significance and not enough on deciding before the study which outcomes will support the hypotheses.

if you’ve been the victim of a violent crime or served your country on a battlefield, you may suffer from what has been determined previously to be a psychological problem — post-traumatic stress disorder. months or years later, flashbacks bring on panic attacks. now there is evidence that the psychological may be biological: ptsd patients can be identified with a brain scan. this revelation has followed many like it in recent years. your mental health is related, even determined by your physiological health. body and brain are connected. amazing stuff, i know, but many health insurance plans still do not financially support the treatment of depression as well as they do treating the common cold, which of course has no cure. depression, on the other hand, can be managed with medication in much the same way that diabetes is. now the notion that generalized anxiety disorder is “all in your head” may no longer be considered a stigma of mental stability and inadequacy. some of us are tall and some are small. some of us are genetically, biologically given a predisposition to musical genius and others to madness. although we may applaud the former and cringe from the latter, neither attribute is imagined.